


Foxwood

by relativelycompetent



Category: Original Work
Genre: Future, Robots, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-07 22:05:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17374088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/relativelycompetent/pseuds/relativelycompetent
Summary: Fourteen-year-old Victoria Manson has lived in a bunker for all her life, convinced that beyond the metal walls of her home is a mysterious "Nowhere." When she escapes, she is thrown into the futuristic city of Foxwood, rebuilt over Seattle after a catastrophic earthquake. Victoria was never supposed to leave her bunker and isn't in The Network. Without a Network Chip implanted in her head, Victoria has no identity, an no place in Foxwood. She gets a job at a 3D printing business, but the company is targeted by a terrorist team of humanoid machines. On top of that, the education system controls overpopulation by killing the least intelligent people with a terrifying Birthday Exam.





	1. Nowhere

The alarm sounded.

The red lights flashed.

Victoria's eyes snapped open.

She rolled out of bed, her feet hitting the cold metal floor. The alarm pounded against her eardrums.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Victoria trudged out of her bedroom, across the lumpy green rug, and toward the kitchen. From the living room, a brilliant white light poured in from beyond the metal door. While the red flash of the alarm was sharp, the light coming from the door was soothing and cool.

The door was a perfect oval, set into the wall a few inches above the ground.

Victoria had never gone past it.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Two figures moved outside the door, silhouetted against the white light. Ignoring them, Victoria went to the fridge and removed a pitcher of milk.

She went around the kitchen counter and opened a massive closet, revealing stacks and stacks of containers. The food storage was the only place in her home that didn't smell like dusty metal. She located a bin labeled "Breakfast Cereal" and pulled one of the boxes from it. Even within the depths of the food storage, the flashing red lights clung to the gray walls.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Her parents were about to step into the living room. Her father would press the metal door shut, and the deafening alarm would turn off a fraction of an inch before the door locked, a fraction of an inch before her parents sealed themselves inside with her.

Victoria walked out of the food storage. Her parents had already stepped into the living room, and her father was pressing the metal door shut, sealing out the white light on the other side once more.

The alarm quieted.

The red lights ceased.

For the first time that morning, Victoria could think straight.

"Good morning, Victoria," her mother said.

"Good morning, Mom," Victoria replied in a monotone, not even glancing at her mother. She carried the box of cereal to the kitchen counter, doing her best to look disinterested.

"I have a surprise for you," her mother said. "Remember how you told me that you wanted new clothes about a week ago?"

Victoria didn't bother responding for a moment as she rummaged through the cabinets for a bowl. Pouring her cereal, she grumbled, "I don't care about clothes."

"Victoria," her father said. "Your mother did something nice for you. You should be thanking her, not giving her your sass."

Her mother said, "I got you a new dress, and I was sure you'd love it. You know how difficult it is to get things out of Nowhere."

Victoria frowned. "No, I don't have any idea how difficult it is. How would I?"

"Let's not talk about Nowhere," her father said. "Dr. McAllister is visiting after dinner, and I don't want you to bother him with all those questions you know he can't answer."

"At least Dr. McAllister listens to my questions," Victoria grunted, carrying her cereal over to the couch. Her parents always got tense and irritated when she mentioned Nowhere. It wasn't as if she liked being so rude to her parents all the time, but it was the only way to make them show any trace of emotion. Whenever Victoria tried to act polite and expressionless like they always did, a cold blandness closed in around her, threatening to turn her into something less than a person.

Her parents had become less than people. Victoria wondered what they'd been like before she'd sucked the feelings out of them.

She stared up at the domed ceiling to avoid eye contact. "Dr. McAllister doesn't get mad at me when I talk about Nowhere," she complained.

"We aren't mad at you, Victoria," her father said. "We just don't want you to worry about things that are out of your control. Understood?"

"I guess," she mumbled. She looked at the metal door again, trying to picture the white light on the other side. What would her parents think if she did manage to get through that door today? Would they worry about her? Or would they only be angry?

"I hope you can improve your mood before Dr. McAllister gets here," her father said. "At least try to put on a smile until he's left."

Victoria looked at him. "Do I have to keep the smile on until you've left too?"

He nodded. "I would like it if you did."

Every night, not long after dinner, her parents would go back through the door to Nowhere, letting their bodies dissolve into the lack of reality. They wouldn't come back until morning. Whenever the metal door opened, the alarm would sound, the red lights would flash, and no matter what Victoria was doing, she would get a headache.

Her mother and father crossed the lumpy green rug and went into their bedroom. Victoria stared into her cereal, but her thoughts about leaving had taken away her appetite. When she finally went into Nowhere, she wouldn't have to worry about being hungry, or nervous. Nothing existed out there. All the atoms in her body would vanish. It was hard to wrap her head around the idea, but her parents assured her that she would understand, once she was old enough to leave.

Victoria got a little bit older every day, yet her parents kept telling her she still wasn't ready. She'd started to think she would never be old enough.

That was why she had started to form a plan.

The hours dragged on, and Victoria barely left her seat on the couch. It was a nerve-wracking, yet attractive sort of impatience. It wasn't like her plan needed any more perfecting, as it was rather simple, but still she kept picturing it over and over again. Any number of things could go wrong. What if Dr. McAllister paid closer attention than usual? What if the alarm didn't turn off when she expected it to? What if the pen in her pocket wasn't thick enough to prop open the door?

Victoria had never done anything bad before. Not in her entire life. At least, she didn't think she had.

Her parents hardly spoke to her all day, leaving her to lie on the couch and shrivel up like a raisin. Even during dinner, they'd been reluctant to talk. Victoria figured that her mother was still mad at her for what she'd said about the new dress, which she hadn't even bothered to look at. But it didn't matter why they were mad at her. They always got mad at her about something. Sometimes Victoria got so frustrated that she would lock herself in her bedroom and stay there for hours, but she always felt stupid afterward, because what use was it to lock herself in her bedroom if she was already locked in her own home?

At exactly seven thirty, not long after dinner, the door to Nowhere opened again.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

A stream of bright white light shone in, and the shadow of Dr. McAllister moved through the white space, stepping out of the doorway.

McAllister was a tall, somewhat wide man. He always wore the same clothes. Black shoes. Black pants. A white coat. The only parts of his body that had any color were his plump face and thick hands. While he looked around Victoria's home, as if he'd never seen it before, Victoria caught a glimpse of the big wheel on the other side of the metal door.

The door to Nowhere opened in two different ways. From this side, you needed a Key, which was some sort of long, metal object. Her parents or Dr. McAllister would insert one into the door, and that would allow it to open. Victoria had considered trying to build her own Key, but she'd never gotten a good enough look at one to know how. From the other side, from Nowhere, you only had to spin a wheel to open the door. It was probably made that way because it was hard to get a Key out of your pocket when your hands didn't exist, and when the Key didn't exist either.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

"Is that Dr. McAllister?" Victoria's mother asked, peeking her head out of the kitchen.

"Yes," Victoria called back over the sound of the alarm.

Her mother stepped into the living room to greet McAllister. They shook hands as they usually did. It always looked forced.

While neither of them was looking, Victoria reached down to her right foot and untied her shoelace.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

It would all be very straightforward. After McAllister's visit, as he was leaving, Victoria would take the pen out of her pocket. When he opened the metal door, she merely had to place the pen in the doorway, stopping it from closing all the way. McAllister wouldn't notice that the door hadn't sealed behind him, because the alarm always turned off while the door was still open just a crack.

Clearly she couldn't just bend down and put a pen in the door with McAllister watching her. That was where the untied shoe came in.

Her parents would leave shortly after Dr. McAllister. As long as they didn't notice the pen, Victoria would then be free to escape into that unfathomable white space, and nobody would even know that she was gone.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Dr. McAllister removed his hand from the metal door, letting it swing shut. The light disappeared in an instant, and the alarm turned off. "Hello again, Victoria."

"Hey," she said, doing her best to keep her voice steady.

McAllister examined her. "Your shoe is untied."

She glanced down. "So?"

He took a seat at the little table in the center of the lumpy green rug. Reluctantly, Victoria carried herself to the chair opposite him. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the door to her parents' bedroom close.

McAllister set his briefcase on the table and asked, "How have you been this past week, Victoria?"

"Bored," she replied promptly.

He gave her a knowing smile and opened the briefcase. He removed a sheet of paper and placed it on the table between them. The top of the page read, "Victoria Manson: Age 14, 4796." Below it was a series of boxes. McAllister started scribbling in the upper leftmost box with his illegible handwriting.

"What have you done today?" he asked, setting his briefcase back on the floor.

Victoria shrugged. "Sat on the couch. Complained to my parents."

"You had another fight with your parents?"

"It wasn't really a fight."

McAllister scribbled something onto the paper. "Tell me about it."

"Last week I asked for some new clothes, and today my mom brought back a dress. But I stopped caring about new clothes ages ago, so I told her that I didn't want it." Obviously she didn't care what she looked like. Why should she? Her mother used to cut her hair for her, but Victoria had decided a few years back that she couldn't be bothered with haircuts anymore. Ever since then, she'd been letting her black hair grow out all the way to her waist before her mother could finally convince her to at least trim it even a couple of inches.

Dr. McAllister gave her another smile. "Your mother was trying her best. You know how difficult it is for your parents to pull objects out of Nowhere. It can take months."

"I know," Victoria muttered. "I just wish that I could've gone Nowhere myself to get the dress." She regretted saying so immediately.

"You'll be able to go Nowhere when you're older."

"Remind me how old I have to be before I can go out there."

He shook his head. "Nobody can be certain. You shouldn't be looking forward to going Nowhere. Your expectations are getting too high. Nothing exists in Nowhere, so it's taxing to be out there. No laws of physics. No matter. You simply cease to be. How do you think you can enjoy Nowhere if you don't even exist to enjoy it?"

"But something has to exist," Victoria insisted. "How else would you be able to get back?"

"Once you go Nowhere, you'll understand. Until then, I suggest you find more ways to entertain yourself while you're at home."

"Home is so boring! I'm tired of waking up to the same rooms, and the same furniture."

McAllister raised his eyebrows. "If I recall correctly, your parents helped you with a significant amount of redecorating. Ask them to pull more furniture out of Nowhere if you'd like a change of scenery."

"I don't care about the scenery. This home stays the same no matter what we do." Victoria had begged her parents to replace the lumpy green rug too, because it was hideous, but they had insisted on keeping it.

McAllister wrote on his paper again. "Are you still practicing your drawing?"

"Sort of. I haven't drawn anything in weeks though. I never got any better at it."

"Perhaps you should try again. Better yet, you could consider some new hobbies to pick up."

"What else is there to do? I must've read all of my books a million times by now." Her books were filled with bizarre places, like cities, and forests, and mountains. Victoria wished that all of it were real.

"Keep practicing your drawing," McAllister told her with a smile.

"I don't want to practice. I just don't want to be bored."

"If you want to have more fun, maybe you should stop being so angry at your parents. I'm sure they'd be willing to do something with you to pass the time."

"I'm not angry at them. I'm tired of them. I wish I had somebody else to talk to, like the characters in my books."

He nodded, writing something else down. "So you aren't just bored, but lonely?"

Victoria said, "You and my parents aren't the only ones out there in Nowhere. Right? There's always The Police."

McAllister frowned. "Yes. I suppose there's also The Police. But they would only come out of Nowhere if you did something wrong."

"Sometimes I want to do something wrong," Victoria admitted, her face flushing. She'd spoken without thinking. Fumbling through her words, she said, "If The Police came, then I would have somebody new to talk to. I almost wouldn't care if I got in trouble for it." Her face was still burning, so she stared down at her untied shoelace. "Is it... bad to think like that?"

McAllister shook his head. "No. It's clear to me how lonely you've become over the past few years. If you want to talk to The Police, that makes perfect sense to me."

"Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. The Police have been Nowhere for so long, it would probably be good for them to come back at some point."

"What makes you say that?"

"My parents have to come back from Nowhere every day because it's dangerous to be Nowhere for a long time. And that's why you come to visit me, isn't it?"

"I'm here to give you lessons, and to make sure that you're psychologically stable. You know that."

Victoria looked away from him and at the metal door. Was that why she wasn't allowed to leave? Was she not stable? Was there something so wrong with her that she couldn't even tell what it was? Maybe her parents weren't mad at her all the time. Maybe they were simply disappointed that their daughter was hopelessly flawed, and showed no signs of improving.

Dr. McAllister said, "As for The Police, they're out in Nowhere because they're working to keep you safe, just like your parents."

"Why can't they come to visit me, then?" Victoria asked. "Why do I have to do something wrong to see them?"

"That's just how The Police are."

Victoria wanted to be a good person. She really did. But she had to find out what was past that door. She had to feel what Nowhere was like.

McAllister tilted his head. "Why is it that you're so curious about The Police all of a sudden?"

She didn't know what to say. "I dunno. I was just... wondering."

His eyes dug into her. "Is there anything you would like to talk to me about?"

Before Victoria could stop herself, she glanced at the metal door again, and when she tried to look away from it, her gaze fell on the shoelace that she'd intentionally untied. Swallowing hard, she said, "No. There's nothing I want to talk about."

It was clear that Dr. McAllister didn't believe her, but he didn't press the topic further. Instead, he scribbled on his paper in his loopy handwriting. Victoria wanted to read what he'd written, but she was scared to look too closely.

She tried to change the subject. "Have my parents ever done anything bad?"

"Why do you ask?"

Victoria hesitated. "Do you remember how I told you that I thought I heard The Police one night?"

McAllister studied her. "Yes. That was a long time ago. You were very young."

"They were here because my parents didn't leave that night, weren't they?"

"Can you be sure that they were here at all?" The way he said it, it almost sounded like a challenge.

"But I remember it so clearly." Victoria ran her hand through her black hair, clawing all the way down to her waist. "I was eight years old. I woke up in the middle of the night because I heard voices outside of my bedroom. They didn't sound familiar. I started listening at my door, but I couldn't hear what they were saying."

"Didn't you want to open the door to see who it was?"

"I did. I really wanted to."

He narrowed his eyes. "But you didn't."

"No. I should've."

McAllister suddenly smiled. "I'm sure it was only a dream. Why else would you have kept the door shut? Why else would you have been so unable to hear the voices?"

"I guess." After her parents had been saying the same thing for years, Victoria was finally starting to believe it.

Truthfully, she was terrified of The Police. When she left, could other people in Nowhere sense that she was out there? Could The Police find her even after she escaped? No, it was nonsense.

Nothing exists in Nowhere, so nobody can find you. Not your parents. Not Dr. McAllister. Not The Police.

But if anything went wrong with Victoria's plan, then The Police would come. Her parents had told her that The Police were like ordinary people, but Victoria couldn't help sensing that there was something different about them. If they could survive in Nowhere for so long, they couldn't be quite human, could they?

"I think you should try to be nicer to your parents," McAllister said.

"Why should I?"

"Your parents have been going Nowhere every night for your entire life in order to keep you safe here. They've been working hard for you. They deserve some kindness."

"But what are they even doing out there? I deserve to know!"

"Please calm down, Victoria."

"But it isn't fair! Nobody tells me anything! You and my parents keep saying that I have to wait until I'm older to leave, but I don't see any reason to wait! I'm fourteen and a half! How long will it take?"

McAllister exhaled and started to write something on his paper.

"What are you writing now?" Victoria insisted.

"I'm taking notes on our lesson, like I always do," he said blandly.

"But we haven't started the lesson yet."

"Would you like to begin?" he asked, lifting his briefcase off the floor.

She crossed her arms. "Fine." She didn't care about lessons. Everything she learned was useless. Physics. Chemistry. Math. Each week, she hoped to learn more about Nowhere, but nothing McAllister taught her seemed to apply to the white space outside.

A piece of paper appeared in front of her. It was a list of equations. "Today you'll be learning about exponents," McAllister said.

Every equation on the page looked the same. A number with a smaller number hanging above it, followed by an equals sign. "Exponents?" Victoria repeated.

"An exponent is a notation for repeated multiplication. You see the small numbers above the larger ones? Those are the exponents. For example, if a four has a two above it, it's to the second power, meaning you multiply two fours together. If a four has a three above it, it's to the third power, so you multiply three fours together. If a four has a four above it-"

Victoria droned, "You multiply four fours. Got it."

McAllister reached out a hand, offering her a pen.

"I have a pen," Victoria said, waving it away. She took the pen from her pocket and felt its shape with her fingers. She wondered if it was the perfect width to prop the door open. If it was too skinny, the lock would snap shut, but if it was too wide, the alarm wouldn't turn off, and McAllister would realize what she'd done.

He tilted his head and looked her in the eye. "Why did you have a pen in your pocket? I thought you said that you hadn't been practicing your drawing anymore?"

Victoria felt queasy. She couldn't think of anything to say.

He appeared to lose interest, but she knew he was still curious. She looked down at the equations, and somehow it made her even more queasy.

This was just a notation for multiplication. She wasn't learning how to do math, she was learning how to read it. When in her life had she ever needed to use multiplication?

Five to the second is twenty-five. Three to the third is twenty-seven. Four to the third is sixty-four.

This was stupid. This was unbearably dull. When would she start learning about Nowhere? She often imagined her body dissolving into the white light beyond the metal door. Sometimes she pictured herself being ripped apart. Would losing her physical form be painful? But pain couldn't exist if nothing else did.

Six to the second is thirty-four. Ten to the second is one hundred.

Victoria had dreams about leaving home. Sometimes she dreamt that her parents would go out into Nowhere at night, and forget to close the door behind them, or sometimes the door would simply open by itself. But every time that Victoria tried to go out into that white space, she woke up.

Seven to the second is forty-nine. Four to the first... That was just four, wasn't it?

She dreamt about The Police too, but they were monsters, with grotesque faces. In one dream they appeared in her living room in the middle of the night, and they chased her. They grabbed her, and they held her down, and when Victoria was crying, begging, asking them why they had come, they told her that they knew she was planning to escape, and that the mere thought of it wasn't allowed.

Two to the third is eight. Zero to the third is... Hm. Well, that was zero times zero times zero, but anything times zero was still zero. Victoria glanced at Dr. McAllister, who was staring down at his own paper, looking just as bored as she felt. With a sigh, she wrote a zero.

Sometimes in her dreams, her parents went out the door to Nowhere and she simply knew they weren't ever back. For some reason those dreams scared her the most.

There were only three problems left. Five to the third is twenty-five times five, which is one hundred and twenty-five. One to the third is one. Twelve to the second is one hundred and forty-four.

She flipped the page over, but the other side was blank. Glancing at the metal door again, Victoria let out a long breath. As soon as she handed this worksheet back to Dr. McAllister, he would leave, and she'd have her chance to prop the door open.

It'll be simple.

You can do this.

Victoria looked down at her untied right shoe. Then she stared at the pen in her hand, wondering what McAllister would do after he caught her trying to go Nowhere.

Whenever her parents punished her for being rude or mean, they would make her sit in her room for an hour. It was silly, since Victoria spent every day of her life sitting around doing nothing anyway. But The Police had never come out of Nowhere before, and it terrified her.

Or maybe there were no Police. Maybe her parents had made them up to frighten her.

"I'm done," she said weakly. With a shaking hand, she pushed the worksheet across the table.

Dr. McAllister looked up. "Very well." He ran his eyes over it, checking each question one by one. He marked a single question wrong, and Victoria craned her neck to see which it was. It was probably the one with the zeroes.

"Excellent," he said. "You've picked up on the concept very quickly."

"So... what can I use exponents for?" she asked.

McAllister lifted his briefcase onto the table, causing her to tense up. He said, "Our lesson next week will be about square roots, which is a similar concept to exponents."

She pursed her lips. "But, I mean, what about outside of lessons?"

"The knowledge you gain in our lessons can be used however you please." He took the papers and put them into his briefcase. "Now then, I should get going."

Victoria stood with him, but her legs felt weak underneath her. At the end of every lesson, she always walked Dr. McAllister to the door. Usually she was just trying to get a better look at Nowhere, even though there was nothing to see but white light. McAllister couldn't possibly suspect that she planned to escape, yet she couldn't shake the feeling that he knew something.

McAllister took his Key out of his pocket. He inserted it into the metal door and pried it open, letting the bright light flood in.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Her skin clammy, Victoria looked down at her feet. "My shoe is untied," she said aloud, as if to herself, but it sounded so fake, so forced.

She bent down within arm's reach of the doorway, holding the pen in her hand. McAllister had pushed the door all the way open, and the light was shining its brightest.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

As Victoria finished tying her shoe, she reached out a hand and placed the pen in the doorway. Then she stood back up, feeling numb.

She glanced at Dr. McAllister beside her. The light shone on his face. He was looking down. Victoria wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn't stop watching him. He must've seen her put the pen down. He had to be staring right at it. Her heart was pounding, and her stomach felt like it had been tied in a knot.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

McAllister turned to her and gave her a smile. "Very well," he said in his usual, formal tone. He held out a hand. "I'll be off."

Victoria gave him a floppy handshake, wondering if stress had somehow turned her bones into rubber. McAllister stepped through the doorway, his shoe missing the pen by a couple of inches. He grabbed the metal door and pulled it shut behind him.

The last sliver of light seemed to take a long time to fade, until finally Dr. McAllister sealed it on the other side.

The alarm shut off.

The lights stopped flashing.

The door was closed.

Victoria stood silently in the living room, staring at the metal door, her face red and her breath short. It looked like it might be open just a little more than it should be, but it was hard to be certain.

Now all she had to do was wait.

Victoria walked across the living room, her legs trembling as she took a seat on the couch. Her parents would leave in a few minutes. They wouldn't notice that the lock hadn't snapped shut, would they? What were the odds that they would see the door sticking out that precious fraction of an inch?

She sat on the couch and waited, waited, waited, the uncertainty tearing her apart from the inside.

Calm down. Your parents can't see you like this. They'll ask why you look so flustered.

Two of the longest minutes passed, and then her parents stepped out of their bedroom. Victoria tried to control her breathing as they crossed the lumpy green rug.

"We're heading out," her father said.

Incapable of responding, Victoria watched them walk by. She focused on stopping her legs from shaking.

Her father took out his Key, inserted it, and tugged open the metal door. This time, Victoria couldn't hear the alarm. She couldn't see the red lights. All that she could see was the little black line, barely visible against the light, lying right in the doorway.

Her father stepped directly over it, and her mother followed behind. Within seconds, the door had slammed shut again.

Victoria stared down at her feet. At this moment, her parents were dissolving into the nothingness, becoming one with Nowhere, joining the nonexistent entities of Dr. McAllister and The Police.

They wouldn't be back until morning.

She stood up, but she didn't go to the metal door. She started pacing, walking in circle after circle. She couldn't open the door. Something had gone wrong, or something would go wrong.

Once she couldn't stop herself any longer, she walked up to the metal door. Of course it was locked. She wasn't really going to escape. It was impossible.

She tried to tug at the side, but the crease was too narrow for her to grab the door. She took a deep breath.

Victoria raised a fist and slammed it on the face of door.

BEEP.

BEEP.

BEEP.

Blinded by the flashing red lights, she stumbled backward. Then her body turned to ice. The door had come forward, just a crack, letting a stream of light through.

She moved closer, her fingers touching the seam of white space. She slid her fingers into the light and tugged at the metal, terrified that the door would somehow close again. She pulled it open until it rested against the wall, letting the light flood over her.

And there was the pen, still sitting in its place.

Victoria bent over, lifting it from its precarious balance on the threshold. Carefully, as if it were made of glass, she eased it back into her pocket.

If she went Nowhere, could she ever come back? She ran her hands along the metal wheel on the outside of the door, reassuring herself that she would get home somehow. Somehow she would reassemble herself out of the emptiness that she was about to become.

But if she wasn't supposed to leave yet, would she be able to become whole again?

It didn't matter, did it? She was finally leaving home, and that was all that mattered.

With defiant steps, she walked into the light, pulling the door shut behind her.


	2. Somewhere

Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.

The light stretched on forever. It wrapped itself around Victoria's body, somehow tightening and widening at the same time. With every step forward, she waited to feel a dissolving sensation as she became one with the empty space.

The white light grew warmer, and there was a gray ring up ahead. Could it be some kind of camera, projecting reality? Victoria tried to get a closer look, but the light was becoming sharper and brighter, forcing her to squint.

She put a hand up in front of her face, casting a shadow across her. How could shadows exist in Nowhere?

Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.

The white space seemed almost... narrower. And then Victoria swayed just a little to the side, and the world beyond the light appeared around her.

She was in a hallway. The hallway was metal, and completely empty, save a tall spotlight just a short distance ahead of her.

A spotlight. Nowhere was a spotlight.

At the end of the hall was another metal door with a wheel on it. Nowhere had to be just past it. Letting out a long, weak sigh, Victoria kept walking.

Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.

"Nowhere is just light, that's all," her parents had said. They'd said it a million times.

"Nowhere is just light, that's all," Victoria said to herself, and she kept walking, before the fear had a chance to take over.

Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.

At the end of the hall, she touched the wheel on the metal door. It looked just like the wheel on the door that led back into her home. What if she was trapped in a loop, and this door went straight back to her living room? Logic didn't have to exist in Nowhere, did it?

She tried to turn the wheel on the door clockwise, but it wouldn't budge. Trembling, she pulled it counterclockwise, and with a creak, it started to move.

Once around, twice around, three times around.

And the door opened.

Her pulse pumped so loudly in her ears that she couldn't hear anything else.

Beyond the door was a black space, and it was even emptier than the white light had been. The blackness was cold and infinite. Victoria was sure that she would step out and fall endlessly into the void.

Is Nowhere infinitely big or infinitely small?

She moved her foot through the doorway...

...and it landed safely on the other side.

She still had her physical form, and there was solid ground beneath her. Yet something was different. The air smelled fresher somehow.

There was a tickling at her ankles. She looked down. Was she dissolving into the nothingness? She bent over to feel her feet, and something brushed against her hands. Looking closer, tiny fingerlike strands reached up around her shoes. They were narrow and covered the surface of whatever it was that she stood on.

Then she looked up, and she saw a magnificent view.

A huge white circle was hanging above her, smudged with gray. There were specks of light scattered around it. Were these objects that had lost their shapes? Maybe that light was a chair! And that was a book! Victoria yearned to climb up and touch them, but she still seemed to be anchored to the ground.

She spun in a full circle, and she saw that there were domes in every direction. Looking back at the door revealed that she had been inside of a dome herself. Above the metal door, there were four red numbers. 4796. Those numbers were on all of Dr. McAllister's papers, the ones he used to take notes during their lessons.

She shivered. If she could reach the lights above her, perhaps one of them was a jacket. For a moment, she considered turning back to get some warmer clothes from home, but she had come too far. Something in her wanted to keep walking and never come back.

But Victoria couldn't stay Nowhere forever, could she? What was it out here that was so dangerous? Carefully, she took a step forward. Then another. And another.

Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.

Her vision began to adjust in the darkness. The domes looked more gray now, and the fingerlike strands in the ground were green. Nowhere was nothing like Victoria had expected, yet it was somehow even better than she'd hoped. There were real, physical things out here. What about it was so difficult for her parents to describe?

Her nostrils flared, and she clenched her jaw. Usually when she was angry, it seemed to overlap with impatience in some way. The anger she felt now was scarier somehow. Victoria was confused, and lost.

Sprinting into the cool breeze, she ran through the green strands and around the gray domes. The space above her appeared brighter than before, but she didn't stop to examine them. It wasn't long before she realized that she had no place to go. It was so big out here, and all of the domes looked identical.

What if there were homes inside of the other domes? Homes like hers, with people inside!

But the only people that she would find were The Police. They were somewhere out here. Weren't they?

Each dome had red numbers. 5863. 7085. Perhaps inside of every dome was another world, and she could find cities and mountains and forests!

No, that was ridiculous. There wasn't going to be anything out here. Nowhere was empty. Her parents had ventured out here every night for as long as Victoria could remember, and if they had found anything, they would've said so. Why would they lie about something so important?

Victoria's eyes settled on one of the metal doors. On the surface of the dome was the red number 1617.

Holding her breath, she placed her hands on the wheel of the door and twisted it around. With a crack and a creak, the wheel spun. Beyond the door was a metal hallway, just like the one in Victoria's home. It was eerily identical. At the end of the hall was another door with another wheel, the door she had spent her entire life staring at. Except... there was no spotlight here.

This second door would lock behind her, wouldn't it? Victoria reached into her pocket and was relieved to find her pen.

She spun the wheel and pressed the door open.

On the other side was a dimly lit room full of furniture. It was a living room, unmistakably the same dimensions as her own. But the couch was different. The table was in the wrong spot too, and the chairs were the wrong shape and size. It was as if somebody had entirely redecorated her home. The only thing that was the same was the green rug spread underneath the furniture, right in the center of the room. Victoria was positive that she would feel lumps if she stepped across it.

Still holding the door open with one hand, she knelt down and put the pen in the doorway. She tried to place it in the exact spot that she'd placed it last time. Satisfied, she stood up and stepped back.

Closing her eyes, Victoria let the metal door shut.

Something was wrong. She hadn't done anything differently this time, had she? Even the alarm had stopped.

But there hadn't been an alarm. Where was it? The silence scared her.

And then there was a sound, and Victoria flinched. "Hello?" a voice called. "Hello?"

It was coming from the room that should've been Victoria's bedroom. The voice sounded afraid. Whoever it was, they were just like she had been, alone at night, trapped and afraid.

A friend.

"Hello?" the voice called again. "Mom? Dad?"

Victoria cautiously said, "Hello?"

"Who's out there? Is that you, Dr. Hill?"

She hesitated. "Who's Dr. Hill?"

There was a long pause. "Are you with The Police?"

"I'm not with anybody," Victoria said. She walked across the living room, toward the bedroom. She wanted to see the person's face.

He was cowering under his bed sheets. He had neat, blonde hair and a round face. He looked about her age. "Who are you?" he stammered.

"I'm Victoria. Victoria Manson. Who are you?"

"I'm... I'm Greg Moon."

"What is this place?"

"This is my home," Greg said, confused. "Did you come from Nowhere?"

"Yes! I did!" Victoria said. "I have my own home, on the other side of Nowhere, and it's a lot like this one." She was strangely aware of her own appearance. It always felt unnecessary to worry about appearances with her parents or Dr. McAllister, but Greg was somebody new. Victoria's long black hair was all messy, her narrow face seemed ugly, and suddenly she wished that she had at least looked at that new dress that her mother had brought home for her.

"You've been Nowhere?" Greg asked, sitting up. "But you're not with The Police?"

"No, I'm not with The Police. I just left home for the first time, and I wanted to see what Nowhere was like, so I looked around until I found this place."

"How come my parents never found your home out there?"

Victoria sighed. "I don't know. There are so many things out in Nowhere, and it really isn't that different from home. I mean, it's scary out there, but things exist. My parents always told me that nothing was in Nowhere, but they must've lied."

She hadn't realized how angry she was until it was too late. Her parents had never intended for her to leave her home. It had all been a lie! Victoria pictured the domes again. They seemed to go on forever. In every one, there could be another girl like her, another boy like Greg, another friend who spent every day thinking about the door to Nowhere.

"What's your home like?" Greg asked her.

"It's just like this place, only the furniture is all different, because my parents redecorated. And when somebody opens the door to Nowhere, an alarm goes off. There's a bright light that comes from the other side of the door, too."

"A bright light..." he whispered, as if he didn't quite believe her.

"You have the same green rug as I do," Victoria said. "But other than that, everything's different."

"You have the same green rug? Did your parents nail it to the floor too?"

"Why would they nail the rug to the floor?"

"A few years ago, that's what my parents did. They wouldn't tell me why. But tell me more about Nowhere!"

"I don't have to explain anything! I can bring you Nowhere right now! I've propped the door open!"

To her surprise, Greg sank further into his bed. "No... I can't."

Victoria glared at him. "Why not? Nobody's home, and it as far as I can tell, it seems safe outside. Just come with me!"

"My parents told me terrifying things about Nowhere. And I don't even know you!"

"There is nothing dangerous out there," she said, trying to sound more certain than she really felt. "If you stay here, you'll always be alone! It'll be just you and your parents forever! Think of how many other people like us could be out there!"

"That isn't true though," Greg said quickly. "It won't be just me and my parents. I'm going to have a sister soon!"

Victoria gaped at him. "A sister?" She knew what the word meant, but she had never thought that she could have a sister herself. When she was younger, she had asked her parents about brothers and sisters, but they had told her that it wasn't likely to happen. She'd refused to speak with them for a whole day after they'd said that.

He nodded. "I'm going to have a sister any day now. I've been waiting for months! Isn't it exciting?"

Why couldn't Victoria ever have a sister? But she didn't need one now, because she had Greg! She could see him any night that she wanted. All that she had to do was keep the door at her home propped open.

But her parents would notice eventually, wouldn't they? They would see the pen lying there in the doorway, or they would notice that the door didn't quite lock after it closed. She couldn't keep this game up forever.

"Do you have a sister? Or a brother?" Greg asked.

"No. But I think I would like one."

"Actually, I'm really nervous. My parents are worried that when the baby is born, The Police will come to take it away."

"The... Police?" Victoria said. "Why would they take a baby?"

"They only come when something is wrong. You don't think that my parents aren't allowed to have another child, do you?"

"Why would it be bad to have a sister?"

Greg seemed to shrink as he said, "My father told me all about The Police. They sound so scary. There's a lot of them, and they'll all come at once. They have these things called guns that they always carry with them, and they shoot electricity. They can... They can kill you!"

Victoria tried to picture it, but it was difficult. She knew about electricity from Dr. McAllister's lessons. Electricity was really dangerous if you weren't careful with it.

"You should leave while you have a chance," she said. "If your parents aren't allowed to have another baby, what if The Police kill you?"

"My parents told me that we wouldn't get hurt," Greg said, almost whispering. He clearly didn't believe what he was saying.

"Your parents lied about Nowhere. Why wouldn't they lie about The Police too? There's a whole world out there, and our parents didn't want us to know about any of it! We can't believe anything they've told us!"

His eyes wandered past her. "What's it look like out there?"

Victoria followed his gaze, looking out at that awful, familiar metal door across the living room. "It's dark, but I saw domes, and lights. And this home is in a dome, just like mine was! There are so many, and I think that there might be people living in each one! I can show you!"

Greg shook his head. "I'm not going with you."

"You don't have to go outside. Just come look!"

He hesitated, but he climbed out of his bed. "I suppose looking couldn't hurt."

Victoria noticed that she was several inches taller than Greg. It amused her that she wasn't the smallest person in the world.

She led him out of the bedroom and across the lumpy green rug. "How do we open the door?" Greg asked.

"I propped it open with a pen," she said. "It looks locked, but I don't think it is."

Only then did Victoria start to worry that something might've gone wrong. She took a deep breath, and she pounded her fist on the door.

The metal shuddered. Then it opened, just a crack.

Greg stood absolutely still as she pulled the door open. It was perfectly silent in the dark hallway ahead. The lack of light on the other side seemed so wrong.

Victoria bent over to pick up her little black pen. "See? That's all you need. It's so easy, I can't believe I didn't think of it before."

"But in your home, how did you get the pen there in the first place?"

"I guess I got lucky." At the time, her escape had seemed like an elaborate, ingenious plan. Now that she'd actually gotten this far, it felt like dumb luck.

She walked up the metal hallway, and Greg followed slowly. He ran his eyes along the blank walls, searching for something that wasn't there. He said, "I always thought you could only stay Nowhere for as long as you could hold your breath, because there's no air out there. I used to practice holding my breath for as long as possible, but I could never do it for more than a minute. I assumed that once I was older, I'd be able to do it for longer, and that was when I'd be ready to leave."

"How could you hold your breath if you have no lungs?"

"I don't know. But I knew that some piece of you had to exist out there. How else would you be able to get back?"

"None of it ever made any sense," she said bitterly. "That was the worst part."

They had reached the second metal door. Victoria twisted the wheel around, and the door swung open.

The two of them stared out into the darkness for a long moment.

"Is that all?" Greg asked. "I can't see anything."

"There's more," Victoria assured him. "There's domes, and dots of light, and a big white ball really high up. Come outside and I'll show you."

She was about to take a step out into Nowhere when Greg grabbed her arm. "No, I can't."

"Why not?"

"What if somebody finds out?"

"How could anybody find out?"

"What if I run into my parents out there? Or The Police? They'll kill me!"

"I was worried about the same things at first," Victoria admitted. "But Nowhere is so big."

Greg crossed his arms. "I still don't want to risk it. I mean, I want to leave someday, but not right now. I wasn't ready for all of this tonight."

Victoria pointed back down the hallway. "Go and get something to prop the door open. Then you can leave whenever you're ready."

"I can't just prop the door open. Somebody will notice!"

"So what? Even if your parents notice, you can tell them that I did it for you. They can't blame you that way."

"I can't. I'm not going to tell anybody that I met you."

"Why not?"

"Because meeting you proves that there's something out there. I can't let my parents know that I suspect anything."

"It's not like you've done anything wrong." Victoria looked out into the darkness again. She wanted so badly for him to come with her into Nowhere. Except it wasn't Nowhere. It was Somewhere. "If you come with me, we don't ever have to go back home. Who knows how big the world is out there? Maybe it goes on forever!"

Greg managed to smile. "I can't leave. I have to be here when my sister is born. If The Police are going to come and try to take her away, I need to be here to help my family. Someday I do want to see what's out in Nowhere, but I shouldn't leave now. Not while my family needs me."

Victoria tried to read his face. He really cared about his parents, more than she had ever cared about her own mother and father. Wasn't he angry with them for everything they'd put him through?

"I shouldn't be here," Greg said, glancing back down the hallway.

"You don't even want to look around?" Victoria asked. "Just for a second?"

"You don't know anything about Nowhere. You don't know what could happen."

"Which is why I need to go out there and learn more," she told him, narrowing her eyes.

He turned away. "I should go back to bed. My parents will see how tired I am."

Victoria stared at him in disbelief. "You can't just walk away from this!"

"If my parents say that I can go Nowhere when I'm older, then I believe them!" Greg argued.

"How can you believe that after everything they've told you? Nowhere isn't real! There's a whole world out there, and your parents didn't want you to know about any of it!"

"For now I have to worry about my sister. Can't you understand that?"

"No, I can't," she lied.

"I'll go someday. But not tonight. At least now I know that there are other people out there." Greg started to walk back down the hall, a frown on his face.

"I'll come back," Victoria promised. "I don't know when, but I'll be back."

She could sneak out every every night, while her parents were away. She could see everything.

At least, until her parents realized that the door was propped open.

"I'll see you another time, then," Greg said to her. He opened the door to his living room again.

The two of them locked eyes from opposite ends of the hallway, until Greg sealed himself inside.

Victoria sighed. Then she went back into the dark space, closing the door behind her. She started walking, her head swimming with thoughts of The Police, and of all the people that could be living in the domes. She stared up at the white pearl, trying to count all of the dots of light around it. They probably weren't objects at all. She couldn't just make anything she wanted and bring it back home. Everything that Victoria knew about Nowhere was wrong.

She headed back in the direction from which she'd come. Maybe she'd seen enough for one night. She had to get some rest before she decided her next move. She needed to at least pack supplies before wandering out here a second time, especially if she didn't plan on ever coming back.

What a wonderful thought that was. What a wonderful, terrifying thought.

She scanned the domes, looking at the red numbers on each one of them. 1270. 9063. Soon she saw 4796.

She spun the wheel and went inside. The large spotlight was still midway down the hall. Victoria walked down the passage and moved into the warm light.

Finally, she pushed open the familiar door. There was her living room, just the way the she had left it. The alarm sounded, and the red lights flashed.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

She stepped inside and quickly closed the metal door, her head already aching form the noise.

The alarm stopped.

The flashing lights stopped.

All sound in the world stopped.

Victoria took three steps forward when she froze.

The pen was still in her pocket. The door was locked behind her.

Victoria sprawled out on the lumpy green rug and burst into tears.


End file.
